Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee has been acting since the age of nine years old, appearing in acclaimed genre films like The Road, Let Me In, ParaNorman, and most recently, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Recently, it was announced that he would be taking on the role of a young Nightcrawler in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, so when SuperHeroHype recently spoke to the 18-year old about his upcoming Western Slow West, we asked him about taking on a role made famous by Alan Cumming in Singer’s X2.

But first, we asked whether his Slow West co-star Michael Fassbender, who plays the younger Magneto in the current incarnation of X-Men, had anything to do with him getting the role. “I think it was coincidence,” he told us. “At first, I just had a meeting with Bryan Singer and we hit it off and spoke a lot about our own interests in quantum physics and the spiritual world, so we hit it off, and then I just did an audition and they were saying, ‘Bryan wanted you the whole time so let’s get the auditions done with.’ I can’t wait to connect up with him on set. It will be such a different environment.”

Of course, since he’s taking on the role that was played so well by Alan Cumming, we wondered how much of that performance he has to bear in mind when playing the younger Nightcrawler. “I don’t try to avoid it, and I don’t try to keep it in mind. I just let things come naturally,” he admitted. “Because it is the Marvel Universe and X-Men and there are a lot of people expecting a lot of things, I did a huge amount of research on anyone who has portrayed it and even in the comics and the cartoons and live action. I just followed Nightcrawler’s story. I feel very honored and grateful to be expressing that now. I can’t wait.”

Smit-McPhee also had some thoughts on why Nightcrawler may not have been brought back for last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past along with some of the other returning cast from Singer’s earlier films. “I think Bryan said that he thought that it just wasn’t the right time because there were already so many mutants in it and after reading the script now, I can see what they’re doing. They have the ability to bring these younger characters in now, so I think a lot of the people who know the traditional origins of where this came from will be very happy.”